‘A Man on the Inside’ review: Ted Danson and Mike Schur reunite for sweet sitcom gold

If you had to sum up the driving force behind any Mike Schur show in one word, it’s “community.” Whether they’re set in the workplace (like The Office, Parks and Recreation, or Brooklyn Nine-Nine) or in the afterlife (like The Good Place), the shows Schur has created or co-created always center on ensembles who grow from mere acquaintances into the fastest of friends.

A constant within that transition is community’s power of break down the walls we’ve built up to shut other people out. Take how Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s resident toughies Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) and Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz) show up for their coworkers. Or how The Good Place‘s Michael (Ted Danson) — a literal demon — ends the show working side by side with the humans he’d initially wanted to torture.

Schur’s latest offering, A Man on the Inside, once again sees the ways community can bring us out of our shells. This time, the focus is on a retirement home, and its latest arrival, retired professor Charles (Danson). With Danson in the picture, A Man on the Inside serves as a wonderful The Good Place reunion, one that’s just as sweet and silly as Danson and Schur’s first team-up.

What is A Man on the Inside about?

Lilah Richcreek Estrada, Kerry O’Malley, and Ted Danson in “A Man on the Inside.”
Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

As A Man on the Inside kicks off, Charles is a bit of a recluse. His wife passed away a year prior, and since then he’s distanced himself from most people, including his concerned daughter Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), and thrown himself into an unbreakable routine. Emily takes it upon herself to get Charles back into the world, issuing him a challenge to find something new that excites him. What he chooses is… out of the ordinary, to put it mildly.

Instead of, say, taking an art class or joining a book club, Charles becomes the assistant to private investigator Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada). His mission? To go undercover at Pacific View Retirement Home and recover stolen jewelry. Sounds unlikely? Well, there’s some truth to this tale. A Man on the Inside is actually based on the 2020 documentary The Mole Agent, about a man who goes undercover at a retirement home to investigate elder abuse.

Of course, there are several roadblocks on Charles’s quest to becoming a spy extraordinaire. First, he’ll have to learn how to use covert recording equipment, a process that sparks a delightful montage of an overwhelmed Charles messing up (much to no-nonsense Julie’s annoyance). Then, once he gets into Pacific View, he’ll have to weather his most daunting task yet: fitting in with a new crowd.

Early scenes at Pacific View play out almost like a high school comedy, with Charles struggling to find a table to sit at or a clique to hang out with. He also garners the romantic attention of sunny Virginia (Sally Struthers), which makes him a target for her belligerent ex Elliot (John Getz). It’s too much drama for him to handle in addition to the investigation!

Speaking of the investigation, that gets off to a rocky start too. Between social distractions and the occasional threatening note, it’s clear that Charles is in over his head. And that’s before Emily crosses paths with Julie, who’s posing as Charles’s daughter for the investigation. Their meeting sparks a crisis of mixed identities and launches A Man on the Inside into hysterical screwball territory.

Yet despite all the gizmos, gadgets, and setbacks that come with Julie’s investigation, it’s not long before it fades into the background to focus on what really matters to A Man on the Inside: how Charles’s mission opens him back up to the world.

A Man on the Inside is a sweet reminder to put yourself out there.

Ted Danson and Mary Elizabeth Ellis in “A Man on the Inside.”
Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Charles, while timid, is a sweet man with boundless enthusiasm for things he loves. He can barely hide his excitement from Julie while starting his initial observations, and he’ll geek out about the Golden Gate Bridge for hours if you let him. Danson plays Charles’s eagerness with a slight reserve to start — after grieving the loss of his wife, it might be too soon to let anyone else in. Yet by the end of A Man on the Inside‘s first season, he’s experienced a signature Schur transformation thanks to the power of community. No longer content to hide within his carefully curated routine, he’ll fight for his fellow Pacific View residents and give impassioned speeches about how much they mean to him.

But Charles’s change doesn’t just apply to his relationship with the people he meets at Pacific View. It also extends to his relationship with Emily, who is always trying to figure out where exactly she and her father stand. As Emily contends with the ups and downs of raising three rambunctious boys, her involvement in Charles and Julie’s investigation proves to be an unlikely outlet for her parenting frustrations and an ideal way to connect with Charles. Watching A Man on the Inside turn from unlikely spy caper to father-daughter bonding time is one of the show’s greatest joys.

A Man on the Inside offers up meaningful stories about aging.

Margaret Avery and Sally Struthers in “A Man on the Inside.”
Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

The other great joy of A Man on the Inside is seeing the simultaneous gravity and levity with which it treats its aging characters. We get to see the residents of Pacific View live life to the fullest, whether that means smoking a joint together, sniping at each other like catty high schoolers, or making new romantic connections late in life. In one of the show’s most moving, yet still disarmingly funny scenes, Virginia convinces her best friend Florence (Margaret Avery) to buy the massage chair she’s wanted for her entire life but was always too scared to buy.

However, A Man on the Inside also dives into the challenges that come with aging and moving into a retirement home. Charles’s close Pacific View friend Calbert (Stephen McKinley Henderson) struggles with his workaholic son visiting him less and less. Characters face heartbreaking diagnoses and lose their friends. Saddest of all, some residents struggle with dementia, leading them to be shunned by other members of the community in A Man on the Inside‘s most heartbreaking scenes. Thankfully, care from Charles, who’s witnessed firsthand the effects of dementia, and Pacific View head Didi (a wonderfully sweet Stephanie Beatriz) prove that there’s hope in the darkness.

Still, that sense of abandonment from other residents rings truer to a broader shunting aside of the elderly in real life. Earlier this year, the June Squibb-led film Thelma examined how older people can be discounted or babied, and the anxiety that that can cause. A Man on the Inside continues this discussion with empathy, giving the Pacific View residents space to express their frustrations while also acknowledging how painful it can be to watch someone you love age and gradually lose some of their physical or mental faculties. Chances are, you’ll see a lot of your parents and grandparents in Charles and his compatriots, and those suggestions are bound to make you shed a tear. (You’ve been warned: This show made me cry buckets.)

A Man on the Inside tempers this heavier material with its sharp humor, never leaning too far into schmaltz or lecturing. Its ensemble also boasts incredible chemistry right off the bat, with Danson proving a rock-solid ringleader. These are things you’d expect from a Schur show, and they build A Man on the Inside‘s wonderful foundation. But again, it’s the show’s thoughtful portrayal of aging that really makes it stand out, and turns A Man on the Inside into something remarkable.

A Man on the Inside is now streaming on Netflix.